Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Sascha Rothchild and Matt Kay

MAMMOTH LAKES, CALIF., MARCH 5 The couple wanted to marry outside, but weather only allowed a few pictures before moving indoors.Credit
Kevin Westenbarger for The New York Times

THE irony was not lost: during the year leading to her marriage to Matt Kay on March 5, Sascha Rothchild was writing a book titled “How to Get Divorced by 30.”

Her own failed first marriage was just one among several outrageous topics tackled in this set of witty and very personal essays — a talent that had won her some notoriety in 2004 when she read another of her essays on the public radio show “This American Life.”

Her father, John Rothchild of Miami Beach, himself a writer, remembered being “stunned” as his daughter reeled out tales of her debauchery as a Miami teenager: multiple make-out sessions, shoplifting and worse. (Her maternal grandfather, the late Charles A. Berns, was a founder of the “21” Club.)

Ms. Rothchild, now 34, was unaware that belated word of her youthful escapades would hurt anyone. Her crazy life was simply a source of good material.

Despite Ms. Rothchild’s wildness, she had kept a good-girl cover, consistently earning excellent grades (as she did at Boston College, from which she graduated summa cum laude) before heading to Hollywood with an “ambitious” college boyfriend.

That relationship, which ended in relentless arguments, primed her to pick differently; she became involved with someone she called a “lackadaisical stoner,” but with whom she never argued.

With many of her friends marrying, three years into that relationship Ms. Rothchild became eager to have this man help her check marriage off her “to-do” list.

“It’s a cultural script, and I stupidly followed it,” she said.

Despite qualms, for that 2004 wedding Ms. Rothchild bought her own ring, deliberately choosing one that would wear well if she divorced.

Two years later, she did.

“We didn’t do anything to make it work,” she admitted, joking that their deepest connection had not been with each other but to their flat-screen television.

Ending that union did not strike her as all that strange. “I grew up thinking the first one might not stick,” she said, noting that her own parents both had bad first marriages. Her friends’ marriages were also imploding, so Ms. Rothchild, then just 30, hatched the idea to write about this trend of “starter” marriages, all the while turning to therapy and yoga. She was also dating frantically, which provided even more material for her forays into publishing.

She was spinning one such tale when Mr. Kay, a Midwesterner working as a freelance editor for reality television programs, found himself seated across from her at a poker party in 2007, a year after she had separated from her husband.

After meeting her, Mr. Kay recalled thinking that she was “bubbly, chatty and beautiful,” but then reminded himself, “I’m no longer dating ‘crazy.’ ”

Mr. Kay, described by friends as “traditional,” “pensive,” even “square,” had decided to set aside nutty relationships, he said, to put the focus on his passions: work, surfing, snowboarding and poker.

Knocked out of the game before Ms. Rothchild, he left the party without so much as a personal goodbye.

Ms. Rothchild, thinking they’d shared an attraction, recalled being surprised. Mr. Kay had indeed felt it but also perceived danger, so he feigned indifference.

“To make a good bluff, there has to be a little truth to it,” said Mr. Kay, now 35.

The next day an e-mail from Ms. Rothchild popped up in Mr. Kay’s in-box — he anticipated a group thank-you, but it was her invitation for drinks.

He shut down his computer. Then he called Juan Carlos Tonda, the mutual friend who had hosted the party. “Is she crazy?” he asked.

“Sascha has a lot stowed in the baggage department, but you’d be stupid not to go out with her,” said Mr. Tonda, who knew her outlandish facade protected a tender heart.

Photo

TWIN ROLES Juan Carlos Tonda, fourth from left, was matchmaker and officiant.Credit
Kevin Westenbarger for The New York Times

He also provided a link to Ms. Rothchild’s radio essay. Mr. Kay listened, not laughing: there was an underpinning of sadness in the self-deprecating humor. Cautious but curious, he accepted her invitation.

Over dinner, Ms. Rothchild was drawn in by Mr. Kay’s deep questions and sincerity. “Matt was an immediate muse, never asking the usual boring first few date questions,” she said.

“Sascha was hilarious,” he said, “but also willing to be real.” Soon, these veterans of the dating trenches were a happy couple, with Mr. Kay tapping into an emotional well that Ms. Rothchild often covered up with snarkiness, even as she helped bring out his playful side.

But what became of not dating “crazy”? “I found a crazy girl willing to work on herself,” he said. “That meant I had to work on myself.”

The new relationship met tests. In early 2008, the LA Weekly published an essay by Ms. Rothchild lewdly detailing a one-night stand. The event had happened pre-Mr. Kay, but the happy vanished anyway. They argued. Mr. Kay told Ms. Rothchild that her writing sometimes made him uncomfortable. “Too bad,” she snapped.

Later, Ms. Rothchild offered an olive branch. She made an offer she was sure Mr. Kay would refuse: couple’s therapy.

But Mr. Kay surprised her. Soon both were plumbing the depths of their love (and themselves) in 50-minute sessions.

“Week by week we worked hard on bettering ourselves and our communication,” Mr. Kay said.

“Sascha’s not defensive, she’s very altruistic — and most importantly, she’s capable of deep introspection,” he added. “Because of that, I had to put up or shut up.”

Upon moving in together, they commingled their books without a worry as to who owned what. Ms. Rothchild read that as a sign.

She soon wrote for Psychology Today about the life-changing tools she’d gained in couples therapy. Then she declined a lucrative offer to write about her sex life for a men’s magazine.

“Matt’s love helped me to understand my need for attention,” Ms. Rothchild said. “I’m loved for more than a good joke.”

Despite all the focus on their relationship, neither focused on marriage.

Last year, while promoting her book on divorce, published that January, Ms. Rothchild was routinely asked if she’d marry again. “I don’t know,” she would reply, “but I’ll never divorce again.”

Mr. Kay, by then working on “Millionaire Matchmaker” on Bravo, was simultaneously pondering a proposal. “We’d made something amazing,” he said. All of the challenges aside, neither had ever considered walking away.

Was Ms. Rothchild ready to try marriage again? Mr. Kay didn’t know, and asking was a risk. Even the jeweler he’d hired to design a ring commented that it took courage to propose to a woman touting divorce.

But earlier this month in a ski lodge in snowy Mammoth Lakes, Calif., before family and friends, including the actors Jason Biggs and Jenny Mollen Biggs, who had traveled the last stretch by gondola, the couple were joined by Mr. Tonda, their poker party host, who had become a Universal Life minister for the event.

As the bride, in a strapless fishtailed gown, walked the aisle, a group of her attendants stood before a large window offering a view of Mammoth Mountain and its crest, their hands tucked into purple faux-fur muffs to ward off the cold.

Mr. Kay, who declared himself “the luckiest guy in the world,” revealed that he hasn’t read Ms. Rothchild’s divorce book, a decision made in therapy.

“I’m not hungry to know what came before me,” he said. “I’m in the now. I know I’m loved.”

And the couple have forged another pact: anything that might concern Mr. Kay is run by him before publication.

George Shirk contributed reporting from Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

A version of this article appears in print on March 20, 2011, on page ST14 of the New York edition with the headline: Sascha Rothchild and Matt Kay. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe